A subsidiary of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Islamic Centers Division (ICD) -- which was established in 1981 -- assists NAIT in the development of mosques, Islamic schools, and Islamic centers throughout the United States. Specifically, ICD manages NAIT's Waqf program, which oversees the funding of such institutions and works to ensure those institutions' permanent designation as Islamic entities. (According to the renowned eighth-century Muslim scholar, Imam Abu Hanifa, the term waqf literally means the “detention” of a specific property or object for religious or charitable purposes.)

Moreover, ICD protects NAIT's mosques, schools, and Islamic centers against legal actions that may arise. Through its Legal Services Section, ICD provides them with counseling vis a vis such matters as proper transfer of ownership, compliance with zoning regulations, and settlement of previous financial obligations. ICD also assists them with necessities like fundraising, obtaining proper insurance coverage, and securing short-term, interest-free loans.

ICD was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document -- titled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" -- as one of the Brotherhood’s 29 likeminded "organizations of our friends" that shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation. These "friends" were identified by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims "that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands ... so that ... God's religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions."